No, In-Flight Internet Is Not A Terrorist Threat

from the panic-stations! dept

The New York Times noticed over the weekend that some US airlines have begun offering in-flight WiFi, and that not everybody's happy about it (via Wolfe's Den ). There are the usual comments about passengers being annoying by making loud VoIP calls or not turning down the volume on YouTube videos, but inserted in is the unchallenged statement from a flight attendants' union spokesman saying it fears "terrorists plotting a scheme on a plane could use Wi-Fi to communicate with one another on board and with conspirators on the ground." As Glenn Fleishman points out, this is only slightly ridiculous. If you're a terrorist, you're hardly likely to se a ban on in-flight phone use as an impediment to communications, while the airplane's WiFi system doesn't enable any on-board communication that wouldn't be possible with other technologies like Bluetooth, or even ad-hoc WiFi networks. There are plenty of more legitimate reasons to dislike in-flight WiFi, but the suggestion that it's making planes unsafe is a fairly hollow one.

Re:

The point is more that bringing WiFi to planes doesn't make them any more unsafe than they already are. A bomb in the cargo compartment could just as easily, if not more so, be detonated by calling the throw away cell phone it's attached to. WiFi would be less reliable and thus much less likely to be used.

Why stop at terrorism?

After all, pedophiles could be looking at porn by using the in-flight wi-fi! Won't someone think of the children?!?!

I think it's time we banned ALL technology from airplanes because anything can be used as a terrorist weapon or to hurt kids. That pillow? Yep, ban it- it's a smothering threat. That book? Yep, ban it- you could use it to hit someone on the head.

That sharp plastic (or metal) knife which is included in the in-flight meal to cut the food? Sure, that's fine. No terrorist would ever think to use something as obvious as a knife! Creating a master-plot using wi-fi is much more effective.

All joking aside, when will we grow up and get over the fear that anything can be used as a weapon if we think about it hard enough. Personally, I think this is how the terrorists won on 9/11: we're now so afraid that something will be used "by terrorists" that we give up on an idea before it's even had a chance.
Do we really, honestly think that terrorists are so sophisticated that they have wi-fi enabled bombs? Or are we still living fear that a terrorist could strike anywhere, at any time... or that a terrorist could be disguised as a 5-year old child who needs to be searched before going through airport security?

Re: Why stop at terrorism?

While I feel that your smug comment about terrorists being ignorant cave-dwelling neanderthals who could never figure out Wi-Fi enabled detonators a bit ignorant of say... common news reports, from FOX and from BBC, I do recognize that banning "knives", but allowing CDs and CD players is a silly concept. Anyone who has ever snapped a CD in two pieces knows that you have two large sharp objects as formidable a weapon as any box-cutter. So why are we banning nail-clippers again?

Your point was well founded up until you thought "the bad guy" was dumber than you/us. They (boogey-men) have a collective membership whose expertise may be in areas you are or are not versed in. To not expect technical proficiency is foolishness. For one instance, who would have thought that anyone should need fear anyone "so sophisticated" that could fly a commercial airline jet? I know I can't -- and I know that I could, if I took the time and effort to learn how. How is knowledge about Wi-Fi or nearly any other technology so vastly more difficult to obtain?

Well, as long as we're discussing weaponry...

A laptop battery in one of those pillowcases? Coke can torn in half (I like the CD idea, hadn't thought of that...)? Actually, the amount of damage to the human body that I could do with a bic pen is fairly astonishing. Next thing y'know, they'll be taking away my MacBook Air 'cause it can cut Cake. Not the dessert item, the band.

You want a real weapon? Break open one of those children's manual pencil sharpeners. The razor they have encased in that flimsy plastic is one of the most sharp things I have ever witnessed in my life.

If you go back to the 1940s it was "a jap under every rock" then in the 1950s it was "a commie under every rock" and now we have "a terrorist under every rock". I wonder when people will start learning history and actually paying attention to what they learn?

Re: No. 13

I think the commenter in #13 is stretching credulity by suggesting that he might get a sudden urge to visit www.al-hacklelobah.com, but here's a little more believable scenario (tongue in cheek, of course):

Then I am merrily flying along when I get the sudden urge to visit techdirt.com, where I am exposed to all manner of radical ideas. I get so worked up I decide to take down the plane. I learn on the *same website* that I can make weapons out of a CD and a Coke can. Suddenly, I'm in command of the plane, flying into a building.

But I will position explosive next to sales jerk, who insists on talking on Skype, or the lonely housewife who insists on babeling to her sister about her loser husband or the teenager who watches rick rolled vides on YouTube. Down with the infidels.

“GEORGE W. BUSH IS THE WORST PRESIDENT IN U.S. HISTORY” BLOG OF ANDREW YU-JEN WANG
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I am not sure where I had read it before, but anyway, it is a linguistically excellent statement, and it goes kind of like this: “If only it were possible to ban invention that bottled up memory so it never got stale and faded.” Oh wait—off of the top of my head—I think the quotation came from my Lower Merion High School yearbook.